


Gods and Monsters

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Series: Gaidencraft [3]
Category: Saiyuki, Saiyuki Gaiden
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lovecraft Fusion, M/M, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:21:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6229003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not nice to hold out on Kenren. So Tenpou doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gods and Monsters

It wasn't so much that he enjoyed paperwork; it was just that he liked to know things, and reading the reports of his subordinates was one means to that end. Not all of it was terribly informative, of course. Deployable forces were only interesting when deployed, and supplies were the least of Heaven's worries. Occasionally a ground unit would send intelligence regarding their position, but most of the forces stationed below had been there for generations. He would have been more surprised to learn that their positions had changed.

Occasionally, of course, something worthy of study would cross his desk. Rumors of discontent in the ranks, sightings of particularly strong youkai, the odd calamity. Other reports were simply amusing--the duly recounted tale of an entire company attempting to catch a determined pig came to mind--and while they didn't tell him anything about the world below, those reports told him plenty about the world around him. Who had an _imagination,_ for instance, and who could be counted on to use it.

And then there was Kenren. He was still at a loss to describe the workings of Kenren's brain, but he suspected 'imagination' only hinted at the shape of things.

Sighing a little, he drummed his fingers slowly against his desktop, unable to work up a proper sense of shame at finding himself thinking about Kenren yet again. True, he seemed to do it with distressing regularity these days--ever since the general was transferred to his command, in fact--and he never quite knew what would bring the man to mind: the curve of a bottle, a glimpse of spiky dark hair, the wave of a gloved hand. Only the hands were usually Kenren's own--so few of the gods favored leather--so they probably didn't count.

Neither did the voice making a singsong chant of his name.

"Oh, _Mar_ shal...Heaven to Marshal Tenpou, do you read?"

"In a dozen languages," Tenpou said distractedly, lashes fluttering as he focused on the gloved hand waving now before his eyes. "Hmm. I was just thinking about your hands."

"Really, Tenpou--flattery won't get you anywhere you haven't already been."

That made him look up, as it was no doubt intended to do, and there was Kenren, standing grinning and cheerful on his right, haloed by the sun through the wide windows. He could have been standing there for a minute or an hour, and it wasn't that Tenpou was particularly unobservant...it was simply that, around Kenren, he forgot to be quite so careful.

"Should I look for new horizons, then?" Tenpou asked mildly, barely trapping a smile at the boldly seductive look Kenren gave him.

"What for? We're still broadening the horizons you've got."

"I wasn't aware it was _my_ horizons that needed broadening."

Now that he had Tenpou's attention, Kenren poked at a few of the papers on the desk as if testing whether they'd bite. "Never said they were," the general replied, not quite looking at Tenpou, and...oh.

Prodding a few last papers into submission, Kenren hopped up onto the desk, ignoring the crinkle of fine parchment as he sat down, and swung one booted foot casually over until his legs fell on either side of Tenpou's. When he leaned back on his palms--more reports sacrificed to great effect--his loosely-belted uniform coat fell open on golden skin, toned muscle. Kenren was smirking, of course, but his eyes were curiously light, untroubled, and the arch of his brow held an offer without strings.

It occurred to Tenpou that he was probably expected to reach out now, indulge his senses with the warmth of Kenren's skin, but he knitted his fingers primly together instead, resting his elbows on the arms of his chair.

"Oh? And what shall I do with these horizons I seem to have acquired?"

"You'll probably want a tour guide. Wouldn't want you to miss any of the best features," Kenren offered virtuously, lifting a hand in an airy wave. It tugged his coat open further, the small, brown coin of a nipple flashed in a brief tease as Kenren's smirk became all teeth. "I know _I've_ missed a few points of interest. Unless you really have learned to throw your voice, and in that case, you've got some explaining to do."

Tenpou shook his head, his smile only a little doubtful. Kenren seemed to be under the impression that he was embarrassed over his heritage, but it wasn't that, not exactly. It was true that none of them talked about it, but they'd all interbred with the newer gods so often through the ages that it was becoming more rare to find a god with no trace of _other_ about him. Of course, that _otherness_ usually manifested itself in less dramatic ways--a regrettable temper, for instance, or a fascination with virgins--but Tenpou's was an old bloodline, purer than most.

It wasn't that he was embarrassed. Not really. It was just...they all made such a show of being human, even the Eldest of them, the younger gods and the dragons too. One simply expected to find two arms, two legs, and a corresponding number of eyes, lips, and so forth in one's lover. One didn't expect _more,_ or less.

He wasn't embarrassed. He simply hadn't wanted to...startle Kenren, that was all.

Of course, he now knew he might have saved himself the effort, as Kenren hadn't been particularly fazed by the idea of something much less easy to explain than a few unexpected appendages.

"Did you really think I'd be doing this with some sort of monster?" Or oversized sea creature--really, it was anyone's guess where Kenren's thoughts had been that day.

Kenren just shrugged, grinning. "Why not? I would. Besides," he added before habitual stillness could stiffen, "I don't see any monsters here."

"Don't sound so disappointed," Tenpou murmured, shying away from a startling sense of gratitude.

"Oh?" Kenren asked, leaning forward. "Am I gonna get lucky?"

"Somehow, I think that's never been a problem."

Kenren's smirk-- _Now you're getting it_ \--was just intimate enough to be charming, because he was here, after all, when he could have been anywhere, really. It must be very interesting to be Kenren, because even the people who hated him the most often wanted to possess him regardless. Perhaps it was the desire to tame something that refused every attempt at controlling it, or the urge to pin down someone who gave like air--like water--when pressed. There was probably a river god somewhere in Kenren's lineage, though on which side of the sheets was anyone's guess. With river gods, you never knew.

It would certainly explain a few things, not least of which why Kenren's kisses were a little like drowning. You almost didn't want to let him in, because you knew what would happen: first your thoughts would muddle, and then they'd disconnect entirely, overwhelmed with the scent and taste of him until everything else faded away. If he released you, he left you gasping and dizzy, and it was only for a brief time before he dragged you back again.

The river, though, didn't often taste like sake or purr when a hand slid down its back.

Kenren made a pleased sound when Tenpou slipped both hands inside the heavy coat. Light fingertips down his sides would make Kenren squirm, so Tenpou kept his touch firm, running his palms up over hard planes of muscle and cool links of chain to push the coat over Kenren's shoulders. Tenpou would have liked to free him of it entirely, but Kenren had both hands fisted in Tenpou's shirt and wouldn't drop his arms long enough to shrug himself loose. When long fingers started peeling him out of his tie, Tenpou reluctantly decided he could live with a partial success.

"Hn...just what is your fascination with buttons?" Kenren asked, eyes narrowed in lazy concentration as he attacked them one by one. Tenpou countered by taking hold of the thick necklace Kenren wore--which most emphatically was _not_ the prayer beads some gods affected--and tugged downward, as if Kenren wasn't already leaning over to meet him. The grinning skull pendant swung free, its wings knocking against Tenpou's wrists, but he had no intention of removing it.

"That's not a leash."

Tenpou smiled.

"Yeah, and I could be wrong."

He had Kenren's mouth on his again, a wet heat that made speech seem terribly uninteresting, but he had nothing to say that couldn't be accomplished with hands alone. Kenren cupped his face as he reached for the man's belt, blind fingers bumping into Kenren's thighs and following them up. Long legs spread for him just a bit more, shifting as feet came up to plant themselves on his chair, and Tenpou spared one hand from his attack on buckles and ties to skim his fingers down the curve of Kenren's spine.

He heard a long, ragged sigh of contentment as he opened Kenren's pants and got his hand inside, a murmur that might have been his name or an approving curse. Kenren's length was hard and heavy in his palm, and a few slow pulls dragged a faint moan from Kenren's chest. Eyes closed, lower lip scored by his teeth, Kenren slid his hands up to tangle his fingers in Tenpou's hair when Tenpou tightened his grip. "Nn...wait."

"Whyever for?" Tenpou asked mildly, stroking again and curving his thumb up and over just to hear Kenren's breath hitch.

Dark eyes opened all at once, fixing him with an unexpectedly level stare. "Because you're holding out on me," Kenren said, and Tenpou hesitated, unnerved by how serious he sounded.

Try as he might, he simply couldn't fathom Kenren's insistence on this point. It certainly wasn't what he'd come to expect from Heaven, was nothing his family would understand, either. His grandmother and her thousand siblings had very little to do with humanity, true, but his grandfather with his thousand forms had never been able to stay away. The perfect spy and the perfect servant, his ancestor had walked among them like a human born, with only the chaos he'd sown in his wake as a sign he was anything more. Tenpou's mother had been a goddess of Shangri-La, but he was his father's son through and through. The people of the world below and their gods, the gods born of this place, were infinitely more fascinating than his own kind.

Yet not one of those so-human gods had ever wanted to see what was under the mask of ordinary divinity. Not until Kenren, and Kenren's...discovery of him had been an accident, to say the least. Really, he should stop thinking about the man while he was in his _office,_ of all places....

Perhaps he'd paused a little too long, and perhaps he ought to feel foolish, sitting frozen in his chair with his hands in a most intimate arrangement. Kenren didn't seem to mind, the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile of unexpected patience, a glint of wry humor creeping into his gaze. Long fingers slid out of his hair to lace comfortably at his nape, and Tenpou discovered a sudden urge to clear his throat and stammer through needless explanations. It wasn't as if Kenren hadn't seen him before, didn't know what he was getting into. It was just that he hadn't expected Kenren to... _like_ it.

"'Holding out' on you isn't intentional," he said at last, "I assure you."

"Yeah? Better prove it, then, before I decide you're playing hard to get. I mean, unless you _want_ me to drive you out of your mind with unimaginable heights of ecstasy and so forth."

Tenpou was only a little surprised to find himself smiling. "You've been reading the Bosatsu's secret scrolls again, haven't you?"

"Are you kidding? Every chance I get." 

It wasn't difficult to shift his form between what was acceptable and what was innate; it was the easiest thing in the world. If keeping up his human guise was an exercise in will, then abandoning it was merely a relaxation of control. A deep breath, a conscious decision, and everything changed.

Kenren's loose embrace didn't, unless the way his laced fingers pulled Tenpou just that littlest bit closer counted.

Tenpou was never entirely certain what he looked like as himself, mirrors and his natural perception in this state being untrustworthy. His ancestors had evolved in places very different from Heaven or Earth, and three generations' remove had altered his line very little. Curious scrutiny assured him that at least the upper half of him was still reasonably human in shape--the face could indeed be his public face, his body and shoulders unremarkable--except that he existed in too many dimensions. It played havoc with his senses, as well as having other...unavoidable side effects.

The tentacles, for instance.

Kenren was still recognizably Kenren to his altered way of seeing, only moreso: he was color and depth and wavering flickers of not-quite-light, a warm eddy of life in the flat angles of the room. He stood out from the dusty geometry of books like a ripple of silk, and Tenpou couldn't help wanting to touch. A handful of coils were already snaking towards him, and Kenren didn't shrink away as they twined around his legs. His liquid ghost lit up in vibrant colors everywhere Tenpou touched, colors that tasted like cinnamon, sage, something tart like new apples that made the backs of his eyes hum.

"Fuck, that's good," Kenren breathed, his voice echoing over Tenpou's skin, and--oh. How embarrassing.

While he suspected that admitting as much would only invite revenge, he'd forgotten that he'd been touching Kenren already. That hadn't changed, and the tendril wrapped around Kenren's length hadn't been idle. Winding upward, it paused long enough for a gentle squeeze before unspooling again with a lingering caress, only to spiral itself tight once more. Kenren's fingers tensed and relaxed on his neck in time, and Tenpou got the feeling Kenren would much rather brace his hands on the desk and arch into each stroke except that he was being...well, gentlemanly. Not pulling away. Just in case Tenpou might be wondering whether he'd run.

Not that he would get very far, Tenpou mused, feeling his appendages tighten almost jealously around Kenren's legs. There were frankly too many to really keep track of them all, so he was only vaguely aware that bits of him were prying off Kenren's boots. He was much more aware of the way Kenren outright purred when a stray tentacle or two slipped inside the man's coat, one snaking completely around his back to curl over his chest in friendly ways, the other tangling fist-tight around his necklace.

Boots hit the floor with twin thumps and flickered for long moments with foxfire streamers of fading body heat. It would be impossible to say that Tenpou stood, but he flowed up from his chair in a smooth flex as the coils wrapped around Kenren's knees tensed in warning.

Kenren's bright smile was the same through any pair of eyes. Fingers unlacing with a lingering slide, the general dropped back to rest on his elbows, and when various appendages took hold of his pants and _pulled,_ he lifted his hips without argument as taut coils dragged their way down his legs. If he squirmed a bit, it was probably more for Tenpou's benefit than from ticklishness or discomfort.

On any other day, Tenpou would have made a game of looking his fill--not that Kenren wasn't worth looking at like this, sprawled out on the desk in nothing but his coat and a few chains, but because he liked to make Kenren wait. Just in case it was the uncertainty that brought the general back. In his natural state that was impossible: there was no gap between conception and action, tendrils reaching to _take_ in the very instant something was desired. He was already sliding light touches across Kenren's skin in a dozen places, stroking the smooth muscle of his chest, slithering under his collar to conform palm-like to his nape, looping from ankles to knees. For once, he could be grateful for the one inarguable benefit of this form: when confronted with a thousand choices, there was never any need to choose.

"Nn...I could get used to--oh, fuck," Kenren groaned, thrusting up into Tenpou's touch and-- _oh._

One of Kenren's hands was clenched at the edge of the desk, but the other reached down, not at all shy, and slid light fingertips over the coils wrapped around his length. His touch was shivery-warm, salt and cinnamon, and Tenpou didn't stop to think; he merely reached for it, capturing Kenren's wrist in soft, unbreakable coils.

"No fair," Kenren muttered, trapped wrist no hindrance to his loose fist, sliding easily over looped tendrils because his hips were hitching up, and up, and _up,_ while his arm remained motionless. He didn't sound unhappy, though; amused was more like it, with perhaps a measure of challenge. "I haven't tied _you_ up. Lately."

Tenpou certainly hoped he was smiling, because otherwise Kenren was bound to be a bit cross with him.

When his other wrist was caught like the first, Kenren hummed a short, surprised sound but didn't fight, even when Tenpou pulled his hands up over his head and pinned them to the desktop. If anything, it made him grin, a slow curve of pure invitation echoed by the arch of his spine. When other coils tightened in a rippling shiver, it had him bucking up off the desk with all rhythm forgotten.

"Oh, yeah. Do that again," Kenren urged, and Tenpou obliged, admiring the way Kenren's head tipped back on a soundless gasp through clenched teeth and a fierce smile.

So with one he stroked; and with another he _teased,_ feathery brushes that made Kenren thrash and came away slick; and with a third he cupped heavy globes of soft velvet, winding and tightening just enough that Kenren hissed appreciative curses at him. Kenren's body in motion was hypnotic, the strain and flex of him not so much caged as defined by the many tendrils that held him down.

"Fuck, that's it, that's perfect," Kenren was saying, and then he lost words entirely as his spine jerked taut, froze, and then came completely unstrung.

Kenren was always unreasonably compelling at the moment of release, but this was even better. The hard pulse in Tenpou's grip, the way tense muscle melted by slow increments into his cradling hold, the way Kenren's taste and all his colors transformed, caught fire--it was remarkable, and Tenpou hardly knew where to look, what to _touch._

Perhaps it was instinct that came to his rescue, indecision dispelled as he loosed his grip on Kenren's subsiding flesh and slid his touch upward instead, snaking paths across stomach and chest, through sweat and semen. Kenren's legs twitched in Tenpou's grasp, tried to spread wider, and the man was still _grinning,_ lazy with satisfaction.

"Hey, Tenpou," Kenren said, voice a husky rasp. "I'll run screaming if you promise to catch me."

Which, in the secret language of Kenren, probably meant to hurry up.

There was no sense in holding Kenren down--Tenpou doubted he could _chase_ the man away right now--but the thought of running made Tenpou tighten his grip, and that made Kenren purr. That, or the now-slick touch that had moved down to press in, and in. _Slow,_ he reminded himself, half-tempted to ask Kenren which was more troubling: the strangeness of accepting something so unnaturally _flexible_ inside himself or seeing a familiar--he assumed familiar--face merged with the monster. Would it have been better if he were completely alien, or would that have made things worse?

But Kenren, who really ought to have an opinion on such things, didn't appear to be in any state to share it. Hands fisting and releasing with each careful push inside, Kenren looked oddly relaxed despite the tension humming through him, his knees angled out from his hips in a boneless sprawl that belied the twitch and curl of his toes, his breathing slow and deep though it came out as low, humming groans. He seemed to be lost in his own world, though his eyes, curtained by his lashes, remained fixed on Tenpou, glassy-bright and glittering. 

He would have liked to tell Kenren... _something,_ that everything would be fine or that he looked incredible like this. He stroked a soothing touch over Kenren's damp hair instead, tasted salt and the sea where dark spikes met flushed skin, and then Kenren turned his head, opened his mouth, and _licked._ Slowly, tongue a caressing slide, dark eyes never leaving Tenpou's face.

Tenpou shuddered, blind to everything but _heat_ and _taste,_ and warm velvet that opened to him when he pushed, slid, deep inside. Constriction that turned into a rippling that pulled at him, coaxing, a faint rasp of teeth dragged over his skin, and then _vision_ \--refracted sight clearing slowly as the kaleidoscope smashed together height and depth and time and sense to show him Kenren--

Kenren, lips stretched wide and accommodating around the thick ropes that filled his mouth, emerged wet, and snaked their way down to _coilstrokethrust_ as others took their place. And Kenren let it happen, panting breathless curses in the brief moments his mouth was emptied, thrashing in Tenpou's grip to get closer, not away.

_Kenren,_ he tried to say, and it was anyone's guess what the general made of the not-quite-sound that emerged. Nothing, maybe--Kenren was as distracted now as he was ever likely to be. But moments later Kenren managed to tease enough slack out of the tendrils wrapped around his legs to plant both heels on the edge of the desk, and then he proceeded to _fuck_ himself on Tenpou with a hungry ferocity that should have been startling.

It wasn't, though. Tenpou had no attention to spare towards being startled, all his senses occupied with being inside Kenren--truly inside--in ways Kenren wouldn't understand. The heat of the man's body, the boundless power that made him a god, the places where he intersected with the world and the openness of spirit that reached helplessly, instinctively, towards Nirvana--all that was laid out before him, inviting him closer, and he drove himself into that welcome until he _fit._ Nowhere left to go, filled and filling to their furthest limits, and with Kenren shuddering on and around and _through_ him, he felt the singing tension gathered deep inside snap and overflow.

Kenren gasped a ragged breath as Tenpou eased slowly out of his mouth, but the heartfelt groan the general gave as he rolled his head to lazily caress a retreating tendril with his cheek was devoutly satiated. " _Fuck,_ Tenpou. We could've been doing this for _years,_ you idiot, sir."

Filled up with weightless relief, Tenpou wished he had a voice that could laugh. Not that it mattered. The laughter would still be there when he traded this form for the other, and then--

"T-t-t-ten...chan?"

Kenren craned his head backwards over the edge of the desk as Tenpou's eyes snapped towards the door, wide and horrified, and a wide-eyed, horrified stare gazed back at him in shades of purest gold.

"--oku?" Tenpou managed as he changed, countless tentacles reeling in so fast it _hurt,_ shoving himself back into a form too small, too firmly limited in its boundaries.

It was...odd, distinctly odd to see Goku plaster the wobbly, reassuring smile of someone much older--or merely very, very kind--on his face, reassuring Tenpou that he was _not_ a monster--

And then Goku simply shut down. All at once. Out like a light as he toppled to the floor in a dead faint.

"Oh, _fuck,_ " Kenren breathed, his sprawled tension now that of pure terror. "He's...."

"I'm sure he's fine," Tenpou murmured, half afraid himself to move. "Goku's--"

"No. _Konzen,"_ Kenren corrected, slowly shifting his eyes back to Tenpou. "He's going to _kill_ us."

Tenpou took a deep breath, pushed his glasses up, and--

"Well, yes. You're probably correct."

Cursing in a quiet string that required very little breath to sustain, Kenren banged his head on the desk until Tenpou made him stop.


End file.
